After postponing the departure from Isles des Saintes for another day (Ali did not fancy a lumpy crossing) we left the mooring opposite the harbour at the Bourg des Saintes a little reluctantly this morning. We really enjoyed the island and its town, the coming and going of the ferries, yachts and tourists, as well as the boulangerie, delicatessen, restaurants and cafes.

The bay was, however, subject to an incoming swell that ran counter to the wind, so the moorings were not particularly restful. We had anchored first, moved to a mooring on the second night, moved to another closer inshore for the third and then to another even further in (everyone else was doing the same, so it was a bit like musical chairs). Despite our best efforts, though, there was always a swell which slapped the bottom of the boat on a regular basis, just under where we sleep……

Thus it was not entirely a sad departure, even at 0600 in order to avoid the worst of the beat upwind to Guadeloupe. This is only a passage of about 25 miles, but the prevailing trade winds which are quite strong now, make it something of a slog. It was a motor sail for about 2 hours to help us shape a course to Pointe a Pitre – the main town on Guadeloupe - in Force 5-6 winds and a very lumpy old sea. After that we had a fine sail, well reefed until the dodgems started – it is a long time since we have seen such a profusion of pot buoys, linked in pairs with trailing lines between, marked only with plastic bottles. Trying to sail between them in rough seas gave us lots to think about!  Having  been tangled up with a trailing line once before between Jura and Islay in a 5 knot tide with all sails up, and taken a ducking to saw the line and extract it from the rudder, we did not fancy doing the same again here, even if the water is a bit warmer.

 As feared the crossing was very lumpy and the relief band was needed on a high setting to try to stave off the usual queasy nauseous feelings.  We are really envious of those people who have the stomach for sailing in all conditions.  It took several days to be sure on the crossing from Gran Canaria that illness was over…..now back to square one, in a sense, because we are day sailing and  don’t have time to become used to the motion so every trip starts apprehensively.  The pot buoy non-video game did take our minds off it for a while!

Wrecks and Floaters

We have mentioned before the numerous wrecks that litter nearly every anchorage that we find ourselves in here. They lie beached on the shore, sunk on a reef, or reveal themselves only through the mast or masts that stick up from the sea bed at odd angles. The bay we anchored in here is no exception – at least 5 visible from our deck, one mast bizarrely just in front of our anchor. We do wonder whether there is some sort of insurance scam going on, since there are so many abandoned and not salvaged.

Then there are some “wrecks” that still float, looking neglected, bashed about, rusty and dirty. We have seen versions of these in every good anchorage where there is access to facilities (water, shops, bars), in places where the weather is warm. In the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, there are loads of hulks that surprise you when someone turns up in a scrappy old dinghy and climbs aboard. They are often festooned with bits of what appears to be rubbish – old tyres, bits of wood, deflated fenders, tarpaulins, metal bars – and we often refer to them as “Mad Max boats”.  They are commonly steel hulls, and the rust scabs seem to be what still holds it all together. Sometimes, the air is rent with banging and sawing at points during the day, though there never seems to be any progress if the purpose is to improve the boat.

In most cases, the live-aboard is a man who looks like Ben Gunn’s older and hairier brother, and washing appears to be one of the everyday habits they have left behind.  Their trips to and from the nearest dock appear to be solely for the purpose of bringing back cans of beer. We have noticed that a lot of them are German, though in these parts the proportion of Frenchmen is increasing.

They can be friendly (looking for a drinking partner?) or taciturn (no eye contact, no waving in passing). They can also be rather bohemian, such as the man who lives on the tiny white steel boat lying close to us here, and since there is no room down below unless he lifts the hatch lid at the back of the coach roof, he spends most of his time in the cockpit as nature intended (you worry about skelfs!). To be fair to him, he does put his clothes on when he rows his dinghy ashore, for which the locals will be profoundly grateful!

You will be very pleased to know that we do not engage in this sort of exhibitionist behaviour at all! Indeed, when we were last at home and Sister Anne, David and niece Emma visited, and we went to the local pool to go swimming one afternoon. Tanned and brown only in the places that are not covered by shorts and t-shirts, we looked like we had been put together from different bodies by a mad Frankenstein (“Does he never take his t-shirt off?”).

We tend to agree with our friend Maggie’s comment about pony tails –“Should be banned for women over 26”, but we firmly believe that this prescription should be extended to cover all excessive exposure of flesh.  As Ali has just commented, looking across the anchorage, the sight of an elderly fat man wearing only a G-string is more than enough to put you off your breakfast.

Take Care,

Watergaw